Former Hackensack train station to be rebuilt

For rail commuters who remember the Anderson Street station house in Hackensack that was destroyed in a fiery explosion four years ago, it will be déjà-vu all over again. Almost.

New Jersey Transit, which operates on the Pascack Valley Line between Spring Valley, N.Y. and Hoboken, has started work to replace the beloved former landmark building, which had been in continuous use since it opened in 1869.

“It won’t be an exact replica of the old station,” said Nancy Snyder, a spokeswoman for New Jersey Transit, “but it is designed to evoke the feeling of the original building.”

Unlike the building that was burned to the ground, the new one will not be made entirely of wood, Snyder said. Instead, it will have a façade featuring a low stonework base, topped by walls made of cement board that is textured to look like wood, she said.

But like the old building, the new station will have the same 46-foot by 20-foot waiting room, and it will be topped by a similarly pitched shingle roof, she said.

The interior of the new station will be equipped with benches for people waiting for trains. But don’t look for a ticket agent wearing a green eyeshade and sleeve garters; instead, automated ticket vending machines will be installed.

When the original building was destroyed, it had the distinction of being the second-oldest rail station in New Jersey, after the Main Street station in Ramsey. When it was built, the track it sat next to was a spur from the Passaic Street station on the Hackensack and New York Railroad.

Through a succession of railroad consolidations, it was turned over to New Jersey Transit in 1983 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places the following year.

NJ Transit succeeded in petitioning for its removal from the list of historic sites while design work on the new building was underway, because the rail agency did not want to be locked into an exact duplication of the old structure.